1. Technical Field
The embodiments herein generally relate to power management of electronic devices, and more particularly to fine grain power management of distributed information technology (IT) infrastructure components.
2. Description of the Related Art
All over the world the demand for energy is constantly increasing. From both an environmental point of view and the existing capacity available, power supply companies are forced to impose schedule based restrictions on usage of power by different industries. As an example, an IT company may not be allowed to draw more than ‘X’ KVA of power during the specified intervals during days of the week. Curbing the peak demand helps both power supply companies and the consumer companies. In the case of consumers, the fixed charges on peak demand comes down, and stored power on UPS and batteries is better used leading to reduced operational costs.
For power supply companies, by evenly distributing power to different users at all times, their capacity utilization is optimal and there are no unexpected outages leading to disastrous results for the companies and economy as a whole. Adding additional capacity is very expensive and comes with collateral environment damages. The term ‘Intelligent Power Management’ refers to intelligently managing the power consumed by a plurality of managed smart IT devices at any time with the objective of optimizing the average and peak power consumed by the devices.
Some of the conventional techniques related to power management of electronic devices include U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,201,007 and 7,188,264 and U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 20100262312 and 20100262312, the complete disclosures of which, in their entireties, are herein incorporated by reference. The '264 patent comprises a server and a plurality of client computers connected to the server via a network, wherein the server defines groups among the client computers and determines the power source information and the power shift time period for each group. The power source can be the primary external main or the secondary source such as the local battery. The power shift time period for each of the client computer groups is based on power load information for the external power source sent by the power company. The server can also define the battery power level below which the battery in a client computer can start charging from the external main power.
The '312 patent application describes an electric power storage and a power control system that may be adapted to a home electric storage apparatus. The use of renewable energy has been actively researched and developed in order to break from dependency on fossil fuels. In the case where the renewable energy is used, there are problems in that the amount of power generation varies with natural conditions and in that deficiency and excess occur with respect to power consumption.